Tim jerked his hands away from the arcade
machine. He had just beaten Bubble Bobble with a modest score of 3,027840
points. This was not a great score on Bubble Bobble, but considering it was
after only a period of 25 minutes it was a great score.

Behind Tim stood another person who held a
stopwatch. He pressed a button, turning it off. "Time trial over!
Twenty-five minutes, eleven seconds. That's a great time!"

"Not a bad time," Tim said as he
rubbed his hand back through his gray hair. "But I should have done
better. I'll have to get it down to twenty-two minutes next time."

"Tim, that's less than 15 seconds per
level on average, and half of that time is waiting to be transported to the
next level! I don't see how you can do it!"

The gray-clothed teenager tipped down a
black pair of sunglasses. "Yeah, so? Twenty-two minutes... no more."

Ralph, a tad more colorful in his
selection of clothes, sighed and shook his head, not understanding why Tim
pushed himself so much. He then realized that Tim had begun moving toward the
arcade's exit and began to follow him, catching up when he got to the doors.

"Sorry, Tim, I got lost in a thought
and didn't see you had already begun to leave."

"Well, at least you didn't daydream
quite so much as you normally do. You have to stop keeping so many thoughts in
your head at once that you blank out on the rest of the world, Ralph. Being
five percent in reality is enough, a half dozen less thoughts at a time will
keep you there."

"Oh, and by the way, you missed an
NES game on the way to the arcade. Remember that rummage sale we stopped
at?"

"Yeah.
What did I miss?"

"You've been looking for it for
awhile." Tim held up a black cartridge above his shoulder.

"Hmm... unlicensed... Tengen...
Marble Madness!"

Tim smiled. "You're getting to know
your NES games. Jackpot." With that Tim flipped the cartridge to his
friend, who caught it with a little bit of trouble, but not much.

Ralph grinned widely. "Thanks!"

"Welcome. Enjoy it."

"I will!"

The two walked toward their home until the
reached the intersection where they had to part or go to Ralph's house, since
Tim never allowed anybody, even Ralph, to go to his. Tim had always kept that
element of mysteriousness around him, and that was one thing that made Ralph
like to be around Tim so much.

"Will you be at the arcade again
tomorrow, Tim?"

"Of course... it's a Sunday... have
to go to my place of worship, don't I?"

Ralph
laughed. "I guess so!"

"Tomorrow we play Mario Brothers...
the original arcade game, not Super Mario Bros. I'll meet you here then."
Tim pointed at the ground as he finished, indicating the corner they were
presently at.

"Kay. 10:10 AM sound good?"

"Yeah... that'll give us forty-five
minutes to get to the arcade and five minutes to use the change machine to get
enough quarters for the day."

The next day Ralph awoke at 9:30 AM and
got ready to go to the arcade with Tim. Ralph definitely wasn't as good as Tim
at video games, but he definitely excelled at getting ready to go somewhere
when he wanted to. By 9:55 AM Ralph was out the door and walking towards the
corner where he was planning to meet Tim.

Eventually Ralph reached the corner, and
said hello to Tim, who was watching a handheld television.

"What's on?"

Tim looked up at Ralph. "Some mental
case just took over the airwaves and is declaring that he's created a huge
marble and, unless he is given two billion dollars worth of valuables within
twenty four hours, will destroy the city."

"That's bad!"

"That's not the worst part, Ralph!
He's starting with Nintendo of America Headquarters!"

Ralph screamed. "No!"

"Yes. But I think I know who he is...
and where he lives."

"You do? Then we should tell the
police!"

"Wrong. We're going to take him out
ourselves." Tim pointed to a monitor that could be viewed in the
background of the room that the insane broadcasting. "Look... right
there... Marble Madness."

Tim shook his head, trying to focus.
"Yeah, but it could be more menacing. Come on, let's get in there.

Tim waved his hands as a motion for
Tim to follow and walked to the door. "Hmm... a keypad... I bet I know the
password." He pressed a few buttons and the door opened, allowing the two
in.

Ralph couldn't help but ask. "How did
you know the password?"

"Logic. It was marble." Tim gave
a small laugh then went into the door, with Ralph following close behind.

The door suddenly slammed shut
automatically.

"Umm, Tim, I don't like this."

"Don't worry, it'll be fine. Follow
me, I bet he's at the top level, we'll use the elevator."

The two of the entered a small elevator
and Tim looked at a listing of what was on each story of the building.

"Hmm... strange. The top level is
labeled one. Oh well, let's start there." He pressed the button and the
elevator began to go up quickly.

Suddenly, as the elevator reached its peak
speed, a metal sheet slammed down in the middle of the elevator, separating the
two teenagers.

Ralph
screamed.

"Ralph, don't worry. Just go out of
the elevator when it opens and we'll meet when we can."

Ralph sighed and responded.
"Okay."

The door opened and Ralph stepped out,
going into a darkened hallway from the lighted elevator. His footsteps were
loud against the marble floor, but after a few minutes of stumbling he reached the
end of the hallway and began to search for a way out.

As Tim said that he heard a motor start
and realized that he was on a platform moving up. He felt something against his
head and began to duck, eventually having to squat to stop from being squashed.
Slowly he felt around his new surroundings, which he determined to be
spherical, and found a button and pushed it. Lights turned on as well as a
screen, which showed the area around him.

He then heard a familiar voice. "Hey,
nice to see that you made it."

"Tim?"

"Yep, and VonMarcus is even more
maniacal that I thought! Look around you by turning your joystick, it's Marble
Madness!"

Ralph swerved his joystick around.
"Hey, you're right! It looks exactly like the video game would if it were
real!"

"Yep. Shall we play a game?"

"Umm... Okay, but let's be
careful."

The two moved the marbles that they were
in around the area. They soon reached the finish line for the level and were
transported, by way of small lifts, to the next story of the building. They
quickly passed the other levels and were at the final one in no time. Here the
real challenge would begin.

"This is the ultimate race... the last
level of the game... and probably the last thing we have to do until we get to
the Mega-Marble"

"Yeah,
I know, Tim. It's home to dangers that are completely foreign to the other
levels. A tube that you have to launch yourself into... frictionless terrain...
and finally the disappearing bridge, which is the hardest thing in the whole
game!"

"Good job. You basically covered this
level. Now, have you ever beaten it?"

Ralph shook his head. "Nope. I rarely
have enough time by this point to launch myself into the tube. I know all of
this from reading and watching you."

Tim began to position his marble behind
the ramp to launch himself into the tube, with Ralph close behind him.
"This'll be fun- an actual challenge with no replays. Switch to fast mode
or else your marble'll never make it over the gap between the ramp and the
tube.

As Tim went forward Ralph adjusted his
marble for the jump and began to roll. They both launched off the ramp and made
it into the tube, both coming out of different exits.

"Next challenge: frictionless
terrain."

"Right, Ralph, and avoid the black
marble by turning quickly and go straight across the frictionless stuff to
avoid getting knocked off of this place and getting trapped down below."

Tim looked ahead. "Here's the marble.
Turn!"

Tim turned sharply to the right and so did
Ralph as he got to where Tim had been. They fortunately both missed the black
marble, with Ralph nearly scraping it, and made their way across the unusual
terrain safely.

They
continued going for a short period of time then Tim stopped his marble and so
did Ralph.

"Well, Ralph, we're there."

"The disappearing bridge."

In front of them lay platforms that
disappeared and reappeared in a pattern with safe points every few dozen feet.
Tim adjusted his marbles controls. "This is going to be hard. I'll go
first, you follow when I tell you to."

"Kay."

Tim waited until the right time to launch
his marble across then quickly moved across to the first safe spot. After a few
more seconds he yelled, "Go!" and moved again, with Ralph moving to
the safe spot behind him. They continued going like this until they had reached
the end of the disappearing bridge and had thus completed the level.

The lift descended with them on it.

The sounds of machines whirring were loud
as the marbles that Tim and Ralph were in were unlatched and had their tops
removed by a mechanical hand. The two of them stood up and looked around them.
They were in a huge room, at least forty feet high and one hundred feet wide
and three hundred feet long. In the center of the room was what they had come
to find and destroy: The huge mechanical marble of Dr. VonMarcus... the
Mega-Marble.

Tim
began to walk toward it and Ralph followed. The gigantic, shiny, black marble
was at least thirty feet in diameter, but it was in a depression in the floor
to hold it still.

Tim
opened up a hatch on the metallic monstrosity and went inside, with Ralph following. The path to the control room,
where they determined was the logical place to destroy the marble, was straight
ahead of them.

They
reached the control room. Sounds of computers beeping could be heard, but there
was no one else there. Tim walked up to a control panel and began looking over
the buttons.

"This seems too easy, don't you
think, Tim?"

"Yeah it... watch out!"

A mechanical arm grabbed Ralph and lifted
him up into the air as a monitor turned on.

"Hello, trespassers," said the
person on the screen, "Or should I say Tim and Ralph? No matter. Well,
you've found my Mega-Marble... now what do you plan to do?"

"I think you know, Dr.
VonMarcus."

"Oh no... I mustn't allow that."

"Oh yes, I think you will." Tim
pressed a button and released Ralph from the grasp of the mechanical arm. He
pressed another button. "You lose, VonMarcus."

Suddenly a floor panel in the center of
the room pulled apart and a black marble rose up on a lift, its door opening.

"Get in the marble, Ralph. I'm taking
out VonMarcus."

"Tim, you'll get trapped and be
killed."

Tim shook his head. "I don't think
so. I saw him entering another escape pod as soon as I activated self-destruct.
There were two escape pods there. I'll take the other one. Plus, the escape
pods only hold one. Now get in!"

With
that said and done Tim pushed Ralph into the escape pod and closed the door.
The lift descended slowly as Ralph pounded on the door, but it was no use. He was locked in.

The voice returned. "Self destruction
in one minute."

Tim sighed and began to run.

The marble-shaped escape pod that Ralph
was in sped toward the large metal door that hid the Mega-Marble from the
outside world. He began pushing buttons, trying to get the marble to stop or
the door to open, but it was of no use... the escape pod was on autopilot and
would not change its course or respond to commands. As he was being continuously
propelled toward the metal door he thought of Tim and hoped that he'd be
alright, but knew that was not going to happen.

The marble crashed through the metal door
and flew through the air for a few seconds before crashing into the ground,
knocking him unconscious.

The door to the marble opened and light
blinded Ralph as he began to wake.

"Tim?"
he asked with a groan.

"Sorry, kid, but no. There was
another vehicle like this one, but it was destroyed and covered in blood."

"No!" screamed Ralph. "Tim
can't be dead! He just can't!"

"Kid, it'll be okay. Come on, we
better make sure you're not hurt and then you can tell me what happened in
there."

As Ralph walked away with the man who had
opened the door to the escape pod a person wearing a pair of black sunglasses
watched him from high up in a tree.

"Don't worry, I'm not dead... I just
need to seem to be right now."

With that the person dropped from the
tree, entered a black marble, and sped off toward the distances.